


Fuzzy Walls and Tired Eyes

by gooddadstan



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Multiple, Tim - centric, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, batfam, first fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20064007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooddadstan/pseuds/gooddadstan
Summary: Tim had thought he had this. He really did. Things did not go to plan, and this particular string of circumstances gets to leave everybody feeling terrible until they can finally get their butts together and be a family.





	1. Warehouses are sucky places to die

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic on ao3, and I didn’t finish it until 1AM so we’ll see how it goes. Constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged, and there will be more chapters to this.
> 
> Dedicated to the Batshit discord server who convinced me to not just make this a one-off by giving a resounding no to whether I should kill Tim or not <3 love you guys

Everything was going to be okay. He’d made a will, sent the company back to Bruce, tried to make sure they’d be able to understand his case notes, and did his damndest to let them know that it wasn’t any of their faults and he loved them. He was the only one to not die yet, after all, and statistics just spoke the cold truth. He was going to be next, and he’d prepared for it. So yeah, Tim was pretty sure that everything was going to be just fine. Maybe he hadn’t anticipated it happening like this, but _c’est la vie,_ sometimes you’ve just gotta take what life chucks at you and run with it.

With that preparedness and peace of mind, the actions he’s taking feels like nothing more than an aimless ritual than a fight for life. Turn on the emergency tracker, take the bandages from his belt and start trying to patch up what he can, activate the comm and ask for backup. None of them would make it in time, anyway. He’d been watching as they fanned out, just blips on his GPS screen as they forge on with the search for the Joker that Red Robin had abandoned for taking care of the drug case he’d hyperfocused on over the last couple of days. Every one of the bats was too far away, and even the newbie Signal was out and about in the darkness. 

But maybe if he’d left the drug case for another week or two just to catch the Joker and come back, he wouldn’t be bleeding out in an empty warehouse on the pier. Maybe if he’d only thought to bring his phone with him he’d be able to call Bart or Kon and the voice he couldn’t raise above a whisper would be enough to bring him back to the cave. Maybe if he’d asked Babs to stay by the computer that night instead of letting her rest while nursing her case of the flu, citing worry over the Joker search instead of his own agenda. He’s sure she’d know what he’d been up to anyway. Maybe if he’d let Alfred stay in the usual schedule instead of being a part of the mob convincing the clearly overworked man to take a vacation, he’d be able to call for the caring butler and the familiar sight of the Batmobile rolling to a stop outside wouldn’t only be a projection on behalf of his exhausted mind, and the almost laughable visage of the cowl still leaving a mustache visible above the suit so finely pressed and painfully out of the ordinary in the dirty streets would be by his side muttering assurances instead of staring ominously in typical hallucination-showing-your-worst-fears fashion. Maybe if they’d actually gone through with calling Alfred back after the Joker broke out of Arkham instead of forcing him to keep relaxing wherever in Europe he was at the time without knowledge of the situation, he would’ve been sitting with a cup of coffee next to Alfred’s tea, having been convinced by a short mention of being lonely left at the computer watching the comms alone.

Maybe there had been so many ways to avoid this, and not have to subject the others to his rambling notes and ill-articulated theories as they take over his cases, but he’d been too incompetent to see them. Maybe he should at least try to get back to the cave and into the medbay, not make them go through the effort to retrieve his body to keep some random thug from unmasking him and placing suspicion on his family. Maybe he should’ve been more careful, gotten rid of his blood on the scene, confiscated the knives and guns fired and stabbed at him, not have been so sloppy in his form with the takedown.

It’s a bit too late for that now, though.

The drugs were blown up, the police were likely on-scene arresting the goons by now, and the gangs that instigated the bust in the first place were too small to not be terribly crippled by the loss. Their promise in rising through the ranks was at least put off long enough for the Bats to attend to the more ‘super’ of their enemies in Gotham for a while. His family would take over his remaining cases, likely finishing them faster than Tim himself would’ve been able to. He had enough reason to be okay with this situation in the end. His own fuck-ups aside, he’d gotten done what he needed to. He swore, by this logic, that his family would be just as well if not better off because of the way the bust ended up.

So who’s going to care if what bandages he does apply are a bit too haphazard to be effective, if he doesn’t repeat his request for backup with his current location after what he’s pretty sure is five minutes passes and protocol says he should. Who’s going to care if in the end he’s not really helping himself. If any of them cared any more than for the necessary hassle of moving and burying his body, creating a false death for his public persona, and going through the motions of mourning the acting CEO of W.E., Timothy Drake-Wayne, for the sake of the rest of their secret identities, maybe they would blame his current carelessness on the blood loss. Maybe they would blame it on what’s probably a major concussion visible from the sheet of pain going from his left temple to his chin. They could even blame it on Tim himself, no injury to buffer it. He could deal with that. After his vision goes black in just a few more minutes, he shouldn’t be able to think and feel things about it anyway. That’s how Jason described it, anyway. Painless and empty and without your own mind really there to interfere.

Though, at this point Tim’s entire body was pained, from the dull aches of sore muscles to the sharp piercing _hurt_ of his assorted knife and gunshot wounds. As much as he trusted his brother, he wasn’t sure if it was even possible for all of that pain could just cease to exist. He wasn’t sure if the brain could even comprehend what was beyond, if anything really was, or if that comforting nothing Jason had almost seemed wistful for was just the way the human brain tried to fill the gap in comprehensibility that was created after that bomb went off. When had he asked that, anyway? It must’ve been over… _oh._ A week ago, at most. Not the most convenient time to be dying, he supposed. Too coincidental. It’s not like he’d _meant_ to go out and get killed.

Which was true, wasn’t it? He’d thought he could handle it, and just didn’t want to distract any of the others from the Joker, right? There was no way that he’d done this on purpose, much less subconsciously. Except, he’d known how many people were going to be at the trade tonight. He’d known that there would be less people at smaller ones later on, far less armed and more calculated aggression levels. Less dangerous. He’d known that he’d likely suffer at least some of what Alfred called ‘excessive injury’, but he was okay with that. He’d planned to get out of the situation with maybe a gunshot wound or two at most. Nothing too fatal, he’d had worse and lived through it. There was no way that this was intentional. But he could have asked someone else for help, couldn’t he. He wouldn’t have been able to take Bruce or Jason away from the Joker, of course, maybe not even Damian from the way he growled and made threats as the group left, but asking Duke or Steph to watch his back would probably be feasible with minimal effect on the effectiveness of tonight's search. 

So why’d he go out alone again? 

Right, yeah, taking out the Joker took priority. The effectiveness of their search would still drop without another person, and whereas his involvement would likely not help at all, the others were imperative for this plan to work. All useful hands on deck, and he could take this alone. He was sure of it. Well, he was sure of it before. He should’ve at least made it back to the cave, no matter how injured he was. He was just being dramatic, his bike’s only a couple blocks away and here he is still only lying here while he’s got two working- two vaguely working- one vaguely working leg. That should be enough to get him to the medbay, right?

The others would only be disappointed in his performance right now, no doubt they’d all have been back in the cave if they’d taken the case, taking a nap after pressing enter on the completed report. Even if they’d gotten the same injuries, which they never would, they’d take care of them more efficiently and wouldn’t even have to take those antibiotics somebody managed to shove down his throat every time he was injured while going on about his lack of a spleen. No wonder he was laying here so pathetically as his comms buzzed in his ear. Wait, his comm is buzzing in his ear. Somebody’s trying to contact him. That’s not right. Did they catch the Joker already? It’d only been maybe a day and a half since the escape, nothing ever happens this quickly. Unless one of the others got hurt in a trap the Joker had placed? God, he knew he should’ve been out there instead, the others shouldn’t have to intercept the Joker’s traps. 

Fumbling with the comm in his ear, the familiar click of getting into the channel rings small, smaller than it ever should be, bringing yet another injury to Tim’s attention as the scowl that had formed subconsciously grew deeper. 

“-mmy! Timmy you’ve got to answer me, can you hear me?” The surprise that sinks through Tim’s chest isn’t enough to get his drooping eyelids to rise even a centimeter as he hears Di-_Nightwing’s, no names in the field_, voice echo through his head sharply even with the low volume.

“Nightwing?” It comes out as even less than a whisper, pleading and croaking and so undeniably pained that it sends an overwhelming wave of shame through his soul that hadn’t been there before. 

Nightwing, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice the tone. At least, he didn’t let the likely increased levels of worry about Tim’s wellbeing bleed into his reaction in the slightest if he did, the steady voice still the same hardly panicked steadfast rumble it is in most situations. Tim can’t help but resent that Nightwing had to have perfected maintaining that controlled expression. “Yeah, yeah it’s me, Nightwing. Timmy, Black Bat and I are coming to pick you up and bring you back to the cave. Is your tracker still on you? How badly are you injured?”

They shouldn’t be here, they should keep looking for the Joker, not bothering themselves with coming back here, go save more lives! Come on, you stupid mouth, object to this, do something! His grumble of frustration doesn’t even make it past his lungs, a noise so pitiful it could barely even be considered a cough bursting from his lips instead as his entire body still managed to shake and scream against the movement. There’s no time to focus on the pain, just report and convince the others that he can get back to the cave himself and they don’t need to leave their mission. Make them believe that he’d hit his emergency tracker on accident, and had been doing recon in this warehouse without realizing it was even on.

As Tim tried to angle his head so he could assess his injuries in a way that would be remotely coherent as well as significantly more non-lethal than they actually are, _didn’t he do that before he got here,_ the swaying support beam in his line of sight caught his attention. Heh, it looks like that one thing on the internet where- no, wait, that’s not something support beams are supposed to do. That’s fairly concerning, seeing as the entire warehouse is in danger of falling on top of him should his eyes not be betraying him. Trying to form at least another word, at least mentioning the concussion so they wouldn’t have to guess on it, maybe even the fact that the building might fall and he’d be on his way out, his tongue stopped feeling like a piece of his body, and more like some weird… meat sausage warm hurty thing. Yeah, that’s what it is. And hold on, no, that’s a muscle that definitely belongs to him and is a part of his body, not some random lump of meat in his mouth. He knew that, he’s always known that. What’s even going on with his brain? Wasn’t he doing something? Why’s he on the ground? 

Pushing himself back into a sitting position, he chokes out a groan and lets everything slow the unceasing screech against his entire existence before opening his eyes again. 

Hm. That’s mildly concerning. 

Now, Tim’s fairly certain that he’s not any kind of expert on warehouse construction, as he usually focuses on infiltration rather than means of building, but giant splotchy pools of red along the walls and floor don’t exactly scream up to code. Looks almost like blood. That isn’t his, right? Was he bleeding? Oh, wait, yeah he is, he very much is. That would probably go along with the absolute agony spreading through every ounce of his being like a nuclear bomb going off on repeat every two seconds. Didn’t he know that? There’s some kind of wacky buzzing in his ear, like a fly managed to get right into his ear canal, and one arm flings up to swat it away for some black cold thing to intercept his hand as it goes backwards into what might as well be an abyss for how much Tim’s spatial awareness is doing its job. Hey, the buzzing’s gone, but now his arm feels like it’s got at least seven nukes going off in it, which seems like it should be a concerning number of nukes. 

And oop, walls probably shouldn’t go wildly in and out of that fuzziness, but who’s to say? Technology’s gotten pretty wild since aliens revealed themselves to be a thing, and maybe somebody decided they wanted walls that could morph into fuzzies at any point in time. That’d be kinda cool to have in a house. Wait this isn’t a house, right? He doesn’t think it’s his apartment, he wouldn’t have had the time to install fuzzy walls, and this floor is too hurty to be his own. He would know, he spends a lot of time lying down on it. Why isn’t he home right now? A nap sounds like a good plan right now, but he’s in somebody else’s house. Should he be bleeding on somebody else’s floor? That doesn’t sound good. But something that does sound good? Just closing his eyes and ignoring the alarm in the back of his head screaming at him to get up and do something, whatever that something is, just a little bit quieter than the pain crashing through his body, holding him in a vice of suffering. Yeah, he thinks, I’m gonna… I’m gonna do that.

And around Tim, as his head hits the metal of the warehouse underneath him with a resounding _thunk,_ the world fades to black.


	2. Ever-slowing Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone to commented on the last chapter and gave kudos, I was worried about how this was going to be received and it made me feel a lot better! I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much, and we’ll get into the more comfort side of things soon enough.

Dick Grayson was usually collected on patrols. Even while searching for the Joker like they were, he’d expected himself to hold some kind of stability above the rage boiling in his bones. Bruce knew that if he didn’t get to the Joker before Jason or he did there were going to be problems, but there weren’t any issues over that before they left. The Joker always managed to snatch Batman himself first, after all, unless he was planning something specifically against the hoard of Robins. It’d been the status quo last time, and the time before that, and before that one, and so on and so forth. So really, while his eyes were peeled and his heart burned with rage, he was collected. 

That is, until a beep he’d only heard a handful of times rang through his ear. The beep of an emergency tracker being activated. A fresh panic settled intrusively in him as he clicked into the channel to hear the report, halting his movements on a rooftop and turning should he need to sprint off to help Duke. Cass should be fine, being to the right of him in their spiral, and Jason would be the one to Duke’s left coming in with Dick. 

“This is Red Robin reporting in, requesting assistance. The initial situation has been resolved, but I have sustained injury inhibiting my return to the cave.” His voice was an almost painful monotone, words so clearly spoken as protocol burned into his mind instead of a genuine wish for help. It sent that small, cold feeling of dread into his heart with every word. As Tim rattles off the address of the warehouse he’s in, closest to Cass and him, he immediately flung himself into motion. No time for extra flips, just freerunning and grappling his way to his brother. _ETA 17 minutes,_ the GPS he’d pulled up told him. Not fast enough. 

What if the Joker had thought it’d be more fun to chase after birds instead of bats this time, and ambushed Tim after he’d finished up the drug bust tonight? If it was the Joker, that would’ve been in the report though, unless it was the Joker trying to lure in more of them to set the trap against Batman like he had last year? No, there would’ve been an indication of that too. The Joker would far rather leave Tim unconscious on the ground and screech into their comms himself than lure them in duos like this. Then what the hell happened that could leave Tim needing an emergency pickup? He knew better than to pick a case he couldn’t handle alone, and he’d said the situation was resolved. Was it unexpected additions that made the situation too much of a wildcard? Why didn’t he request backup in the middle of the fight instead of waiting for an emergency situation?

As Cass falls into step beside him, Dick takes the momentary reprieve from his concerns to respond. “Red Robin this is Nightwing, your request has been acknowledged. Black Bat and Nightwing are en route, with an ETA of 15 minutes.” He gets no response, and as the tide of anxieties rise he bites his lip to try and stop his own voice. Trying to uphold a conversation would only slow him down, distract Tim from bandaging what he can. Just get there as fast as possible, Dick tells himself, he can ramble about anything and everything once they’re on the scene, keep Tim distracted and awake. 

The fifteen minutes between when Dick first speaks to Tim via comms and their arrival pass agonizingly slowly, every rooftop seeming to take eons despite the way he clears them in two or three steps without fail, and the sweat on his brow a testament to how hard he’s pushing his legs to _just move faster, please_. Cass is never more than a half step ahead or behind him, silent worry over her brother causing her to stick closer to Dick than she normally would to compensate for not keeping Tim safe. 

Five minutes in, when the time for a check-in comes and goes without a word, Dick immediately dropped the professional take of ‘no names on the field’ for the sake of ‘this is my little brother and if he ends up dead at the end of the day I’m going to murder the Joker myself’. “Tim? Tim, you missed the check-in, are you okay?” There’s nothing. Not the distant sounds of a scuffle, or the vile taunts of a madman. He couldn’t hear any breathing, and he gets the strong suspicion that Tim’s comm had been turned off and was only buzzing with his questions.

Throughout the rest of the trip, too long and too slow, Dick repeats his pleas for a response from Tim with varying levels of fear and urgency in his voice. It’s only when he hears the click of a comm entering the line that he lets his hopes rise, and no matter how much he wanted to remind himself that it could be some random person or a villain, he felt like he was swinging from a skyscraper with the light sensation in his gut. “Timmy! Timmy you’ve got to answer me, can you hear me?” He doesn’t bother keeping the emotion from his voice, unrestrained panic coming from his mouth in buckets. ETA 3 minutes.

For a heart wrenching second, there’s nothing on the other end. Then, a shaky breath that really shouldn’t be audible for the comm breaks through, and Dick feels a cringe spread through him at the labored sound. Slowly, painfully, a voice comes in. “Nightwing?” It’s small, weak, hurt, and it’s _Tim_. He’s alive, but he can barely breathe from the sounds his lungs are making, and every single alarm in Dick’s mind was only getting louder with each consecutive breath that doesn’t make it through uninhibited.

Years with the Titans seized his actions, voice coming from a place of not entirely consciousness as pouring into the air are not words of encouragement but questions to assess the situation. “Yeah, yeah it’s me, Nightwing. Timmy, Black Bat and I are coming to pick you up and bring you back to the cave. Is your tracker still on you? How badly are you injured?” It’s deceptively calm, far calmer than it was only seconds ago, calmer than he thinks any hero could be in a situation like this.

There’s a hitch in Tim’s breathing, followed by an almost silent cough leading way to what can barely be called a hiss of pain, and it’s more than enough to send another spike of urgency through any calm image he’d forced himself into. Shuffling sounds in his ear, and the concern at the fact that Tim still has to _check_ how injured he is sends a fresh round of rage at the GPS saying there’s still a minute before they arrive at the warehouse. Groans drag his eyes away from the screen, gurgly in a way groans aren’t supposed to be. A loud _whap_ followed all too quickly by a metallic sound of the comm hitting a metal floor brings an unprecedented relief into his heart at the feeling of the warehouse under his feet.

Maneuvering towards a window, he doesn’t let himself pause as he registers one person inside, surrounded by a level of blood he’d only seen accompanied by a corpse. Crashing through the window with no hesitation, he pays no mind to Cass analyzing the room around them as he crouched next to his brother focusing on one thing then another and another, none of them bringing anything but bile rising in his throat. There are bones sticking out of half of his little brother’s limbs, his eyes are open and empty, this amount of blood loss needs a transfusion, _there’s no rise and fall in his chest._ Shoving it all down, he cradles his brother’s head in his lap as he searches for a pulse. 

He finds nothing.

Every single internal organ pooling down into his toes, he forced his hands into steadiness as he slid his brother’s head off his lap and moved to one side before checking the airway. Going through the motions of CPR as fast as he could without causing further injury, he paid no mind to the blood now seeping through his pants and gloves onto his skin. 

Minutes pass, and when Cass lightly presses a hand to his shoulder in a silent wish to take over, he gives a nearly imperceptible nod while she gets into position. Switching seamlessly, Dick slid himself backwards and stared ahead. His little brother wasn’t breathing, didn't have a heartbeat, and had a highly concerning amount of blood around him that was most certainly his if the haphazard bandages colored red in a pile on the floor had anything to say about it. Other, cleaner bandages had been applied where they could be, and a part of him says that it was Cass even though he hadn’t seen her until she switched off on the CPR. This was so beyond the capabilities of the cave, especially with Alfred on another continent. With a jolt, he rose from his seat and pulled out a phone as he dialed Leslie Thompkins’ number. 

“What’s wrong.” She answered immediately, launching to analyze the situation that would warrant a call ahead instead of just popping in like they usually do on a night like this. 

Without hesitation, Dick described as much of Tim’s state as he could and what they’d done, throwing in a request for prepared blood and an extra plea for help. As his words finally die down, there’s a heavy sigh from Leslie, more dejected and tired than he’d ever heard her. 

“Dick, with injuries like that, and you’ve already swapped on CPR, I…” He can almost see the hand running through her hair in a silent show of stress. Then he heard a gasp from behind him.

Twisting in a way that almost makes him trip over his own feet, he sees Cass kneeling with her hands by her sides, Tim’s chest rising and falling with shaky, inconsistent breaths. He’s breathing. Practically falling by his brother’s side, his fingers snake around to feel the pulse in his veins, and it’s like the world was lifted from his shoulders when he found it. Weak, but there. 

“Dick! What happened?” Leslie’s voice rang from his phone in the background, and he reached one arm out to grab it as his other stayed on his brothers heartbeat. 

Relief flooding every part of him, there’s none of the past dread in the back of his mind as he says, “He’s breathing, Leslie, and his pulse is there again. Not incredibly strong, but enough where he’s alive. We’re bringing him over now.” 

“Good, but be careful. Blood loss seems to be the biggest issue now.” With a short click the call ended, and Dick didn’t hesitate with shoving his phone away and gathering Tim in his arms as carefully as possible. Cass stood before him, watching with her careful eyes as she moves two steps ahead and clears a path.

Tim might be breathing, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods yet, and they know that more than anyone. They only need to make it to Leslie’s clinic in time.


	3. These nightmares always hang on past the dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s title is from Panic! At The Disco’s song Impossible Year because it’s what I listened to on repeat while writing the vast majority of this chapter
> 
> I’m also posting this immediately after finishing it, since I really should actually do my homework at some point and I’m never going to if I edit this, so please point out any glaring errors you find. Thank you for all your support and you’re all wonderful! <3<3<3

At some point in time, Tim finds himself standing in a graveyard. Staring at the headstone in front of him, he recognizes it as the one with the bodies of Janet and Jack Drake, not from the unreadable words on the grave, or the scenery around him, but from the voice in the back of his mind that tells him it is, and he accepts it. All of his training along with every cynical bone in his body is saying he shouldn’t, that he should analyze and confirm the reality of the situation, but he doesn’t remember how he came to stand here anyway and every single point is telling him it’s a dream, so he’s just going to go along with it and see how it ends up. Nothing better than standing in front of your parent’s grave, right? Besides, he already tried waking himself up and it didn’t work, so he’s stuck here. 

In front of the grave, his senses are accosted by the smell of wet grass and the feeling of humidity in the air, stuffy in the dressy suit he’d most certainly not been wearing seconds ago. The shadows are longer than he’d remembered, unwavering and intimidating in a way they hadn’t been in a long while. An all too familiar sense of failure and shame swells up in his chest, as off to the side a scene plays out of him standing over his father’s body, unable to do anything but stare at the corpse. He’d never really mourned the loss of his father, in the end, not other than what little he needed to do publicly. He’d only mourned the loss of the relationship they’d started to form. God, what kind of son _is he?_ The hot, empty tears that sent rage to his core swelled in his eyes, and then he’s being lifted up with a batarang to his throat. 

The fabric of the Robin uniform’s cape tangles between his feet as he struggles for a second before forcing himself into stillness, hands clutched around the arm holding him up. The arm of his brother. Not that this was his brother, but the likeness was enough to send shivers down his spine. Though the real version did attack him all the same, later on in their lives, this one was not him, and thus cannot be associated with the real being. Of course not. Then why do the memories flood over each other, fear undue for actions not Jason’s but Clayface’s. Why does he still have to fight down defensive movement when the Red Hood approaches him on patrol, in the way that he doesn’t have to do with any other Bat. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, it’s not happening anyway. With his newfound awareness of the situation and its faults, he could feel the ever so faint motion of clay as his captor pulled him close, shifting and yelling as the same as he had years ago. So as Batman formed in front of him, in that same stance with a vague panic hidden behind the cowl, he didn’t bother with the pleasantries of flailing around and trying to break free of the grip on his body. The words being spoken were inconsequential, and he only needed to wait it all out.

His stillness is interrupted by falling towards the grass in a practiced dodge, Batman sending a kick above his head. His uniform, Red Robin now, showed the diagnostics of Bruce’s disappearance even as Dick traded blows with him. The words spoken, full of venom, weren’t coming from him, instead floating into the air from nothing without changing the flow of the scene. To be called an equal then kicked aside and belittled, no trust in his words and pity in his eyes as he throws another punch. The sting of it hurt far more than the physical pain of his body. Unimportant, focus on the issue at hand, every nerve in him screeched, but his mind wandered elsewhere. And as his surroundings shift uneasily, from the red and white of a hightop as screams rang from ahead, to the empty halls of Drake manor sitting clean and proper under his small footsteps sounding rhythmically as he meanders, to the cold but home-like metals of Titans Tower with the sounds of laughter and chattering in distant rooms. He stands there a moment before sinking into his regular spot on the couch, warm and home in a way it hadn’t been since Bruce disappeared. 

It only took a second after he’d let himself relish the calm for him to be punched to the ground. A fleeting glimpse of red, yellow, and green, conflicting with his own in the whirlwind his eyes are providing him. He huffs a sigh, falling back into the motions as he rises and gets hit again and again by the man he calls his brother. Jason, the real him now, angry and looming in an outfit meant to bring comfort and reassurance. Shouting about replacements, and asking questions the same voice from the graveyard answers as well as it can. A punch flies into his face before he can block it, and immediately he’s staring into the dark ceilings of the cave as he falls from the stuffed Tyrannosaurus. Damian’s smug expression stands unwavering above, watching as the green of his uniform and the dinosaur grows farther from Tim’s grasp. 

Before he could hit the ground again, he found himself standing in a warehouse.

It wasn’t a particularly familiar warehouse, but it sparked enough recognition in his mind to not set off a panic. He doesn’t think he’d ever really been standing in this warehouse. Almost as if to adjust for that, his body snapped into pain, his Red Robin uniform scratched and battered like how he’d expect from coming out of an encounter with one of the A-list rogues, not a routine drug bust. But while he was about 90% certain he’d broken at least an arm before he was in this warehouse, there’s no marks on his skin, the new holes in his suit leading way to the normal pale skin contrary to the sting of pain in his limbs. 

The floor sits as a dull metal, flecks of red across it from a few too many work accidents before the site was shut down. Normal. The walls, however, look like they’re made out of shag carpeting, appearing soft and inviting in a way that the walls of a warehouse really shouldn’t be. But no alarms go off in his mind, and he has to guess that this was commandeered by some weird villains in the past. Maybe they were dealt with on one of the gala nights he always hated attending. Would’ve thought he’d have come across it on his cataloguing of the Gotham villains, though. Reaching out to touch the carpeting, the softness of it goes through his gloves to his fingertips, and doesn’t fall away when he yanks at it. Instead, it draws him in with snaking tendrils of shag that envelops him easily.

What Tim saw next was best described as a Wonderland-esque clusterfuck.

People bustled around, occasionally popping from one part of the room to another and repeating tasks they’d already completed, talking and smiling and shifting their outfits and faces to be one person then another. They’d get into conversations with other versions of one person, cracking jokes about how ‘well one of us needs to change’ and then shifting simultaneously to a different person. The background kept changing, from warehouses to the Batcave to a bowling alley Tim had only been in once to do some undercover work. There were flowers sprouting in thin air, and writhing forms of matter twisting to try and be a solid object only to melt into an ocean of nonsense once more. 

The rapid changing and confusion let growing around him, becoming louder and more crowded as glimpses of memories showed between people, right and wrong and both at the same time. It was starting to give him a headache. He could operate crowds, usually, his mother wouldn’t tolerate it if he couldn’t hold his own at a gala, but this was beyond any of the parties he’d been to. Too much chaos, too much indiscriminate noise, too much pushing and prodding and swirling existence. None of the rhythm he’d grown accustomed to with large groups of people. He wanted out, the pain in his body mixing with the pain in his mind until he woke up with a gasp.

Immediately, he recognized that he was in the cave. The dark ceilings high above his head were unmistakable. Irritation bit at his face and limbs, dull stings pulsing with his heartbeat. His left arm is immobile, along with his right leg, and he can feel the bandages tight where they’re adhered. He moves his unbound arm to his face, ignoring the objections of the IV sending some sort of fluid into his system, hand slapping directly onto an oxygen mask that shifts uncomfortably on his skin. Shifting his head first to the left, he sees the other beds in the medbay, empty and eternally prepped for quick transfer of patients. The medical cabinets sit off to the other side, lining the wall as orderly as ever. Turning his head to the right, where the chairs are when they haven’t been scattered from the movement of the assorted Bats, he sees four chairs, all empty. 

He shouldn’t have been expecting someone to be there when he woke up. The Joker had been loose and the Bats needed to be prioritizing that. But it still stung, more than he’d ever care to admit, that nobody was even in the cave when he woke up. The increased beeps of the heart rate monitor was more than enough to act as an indicator for anyone outside the medbay, and the sounds of him hitting the oxygen mask and moving his head would do the trick even if a fluctuating heartbeat had been normal for his unconsciousness. It was normal for Bruce to sit and wait after patrol, or Dick to hover and mother-hen, or Alfred to sit with a cup of tea during what break time he gets. Now there was… nothing. It hurt, somehow, knowing that they wouldn’t deviate from their patrols to be there. It hurt more than any of the physical injuries he had. That was probably the worst thing, that for all the pain his body was in, he let some stupid guilt hurt him more. It was unprofessional. 

Tim stayed awake for somewhere between a minute and a half hour, his mind too tired to keep count and no clock in sight. When he finally heard some shuffling out in the cave, his heart leaped at the thought of someone finally being there, and the damned machine betrayed him by saying it. Almost immediately, Alfred was in the medbay, and the guarded fearful expression melted into a kind half-smile covering a grimace. He felt guilty. 

“Master Timothy, I’m terribly sorry I was not here when you regained consciousness.” Despite his mouth still open and taking in a breath to continue, Tim only raised a hand and waved it away. It’s not like it was Alfred’s fault, after all, he had a lot of responsibilities around the house. No use in making him feel bad for things he couldn’t change.

With a small pained expression, Alfred walks over and begins adjusting the IV stand just out of Tim’s sight. He could turn his head and look if he wanted to, but he was just so _tired,_ and exhaustion was setting into his bones more every second. Maybe he should just… go back to sleep.

As his eyes droop downwards, more sluggish than normal, Alfred could only hope that this sleep would be a painless one. Tears never did make good background noise, in the end.


	4. The Guilt Too Large

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3 Hope you all enjoy! I swear we’ll start getting to the fluff soon.
> 
> Also, since especially in this chapter it’s clear that Jay’s relationship with the Batfam isn’t what it is in the comics, what would you think of a prequel once this is all over? <strike>I may or may not already have ideas, save me</strike>

Jason had been stabbed. Admittedly, not his best moment, but in this kind of life there’s only so long you can go without _some_ kind of injury, especially when you’re not one of the lucky ducks to have been gifted with superpowers. So yeah, he’s been stabbed, and he’s now sitting in the medbay on Alfred-enforced bedrest. And it was eating him inside. It was just _one_ stab wound, and if he wasn’t planning on doing the flips that Dick always insisted helped him fight, he’d be just fine. The Joker was still out there, and he’s stuck here recovering from a singular stab wound. It’s useless and a waste of time.

At least he had someone’s company, he guesses, even if that person was unconscious like they had been for the past two days. Alfred said he’d woken up a few hours ago, but then went back under the sedative they’d later taken away. In theory he’d be waking up more permanently soon, which was good because Tim had been one of his favored conversationalists once he came back to the manor more commonly. But now he might even go for _Bruce_ to talk to, and if that wasn’t an indication that he was bored out of his mind he didn’t know what was. His phone had died, he didn’t have a charger, there were no books in the cave, and Alfred would be disappointed in him if he got up to get anything himself. Dick was over at the Batcomputer typing up his report, so he wouldn’t be able to jibe at him from this distance, and everyone else was either upstairs asleep or still out searching for the Joker, so he’d have to take what company he could get, even if it was from an unconscious seventeen year old.

Looking at the steady rise and fall of Tim’s chest, for lack of anything better to do, Jason saw the bandages scattered around his form and in the trash can behind the bed, the old ones red with blood while the new ones were only barely paler than his brothers skin. His face was red and irritated from the oxygen mask that had been there until recently, and his arm and leg sitting in hard casts. All in all, Jason deemed, he looked like shit. Too pale, too skinny, too exhausted even with his multi-day nap if the bruising under his eyes had anything to say about it. Watching the kid in front of him, one that he’d legitimately tried to kill and then slowly began to see as a brother, he felt… terrible. And for a second he couldn’t place why. The crushing sensation of guilt in his stomach wasn’t a foreign one, nor was it uncommon these days. It was the way that the complete override of guilt to his systems mixed with fondness for his brothers and knowledge that there was a very real possibility that this was his fault no matter the fact that he was nowhere near the scene that did him in. No matter the fact that all he did was answer a question, this time he had something to do with it at minimum, if not bordering on everything to do with it.

He couldn’t help the hitch in his breath. It fought through his throat no matter how hard he tried to push it down, how hard he tried to make it stop, and yet still it shocked his ears by breaking through. There were still people in the cave and he couldn’t leave, he couldn’t do this now. Closing his eyes and focusing in on the sound of Tim’s small sleepy muttering, he tried to bring his breathing back. Most of it is incoherent, but every few sentences you can catch a phrase about shag carpeting on the walls or shapeshifters. He seemed mostly unbothered by it, but was apparently planning on developing technology to make the walls shapeshift? Whatever he was doing inside his mind, the words kept Jason grounded. His breathing evened out again, and when he was comfortable enough to open his eyes again he found Dick standing at the entryway. Damnit.

“Jay? Are you okay?” His eyebrows furrowed in concern, quickly moving from the doorway to the space between Jason and Tim. 

“‘M fine, Dickwad, go back to hovering over Timmy instead of interrogating me.” He squared his shoulders and leaned back, only for Dick to grab a light off the table and snatch Jason’s face with his other hand. 

Shining the light in Jason’s eyes to check for a concussion and finding nothing, the small frown on his face deepened as he let go of Jason and the light. “What’s wrong, why were you acting like that?” It was phrased as a question, but his time as Batman had managed to leave him with an order in the tone, saying that as much as he phrased it as a simple question, not answering wasn’t an option.

Jason, however, didn’t react well to those kinds of things before and reacted even worse now. “I was acting like a normal person, Dickhead, now leave me alone.” He moved to get up and leave, screw the warnings and Alfred’s inevitable disappointment, but Dick held him down with a hand on his shoulder.

“Jay, that’s not how a normal person acts and it’s not how you act, either. What happened?” The order in his tone melted away, leaving only concern as he looked his brother in the eyes.

“It’s normal for people who just realized they’re the reason their brother is almost dead, so fuck off.” He shrugged off Dick’s hand pointedly as the words came forth almost entirely unconsciously, only to freeze as they registered in his mind. Immediately, panic surged through his body as he flung himself backwards and reached for a weapon. “Fuck.” All he had was a couple of smaller knives at this point, and Dick still had those electric escrima sticks, fuck, he didn’t want to fight his brother.

Dick’s expression darkened into something Jason refused to identify the feelings in, hands betraying his wish to grab his escrima sticks with a telltale twitch. “Jay,” This time, his tone was warning. “What did you do.” He wasn’t getting a weapon yet, which was good, but he was moving closer slowly, which was decidedly very bad.

On instinct Jason’s body moved into a defensive position, knives in his hands as he crouched into the corner. “I didn’t do shit, Dick, it was a week ago. All I did was answer a question.” He could feel his heartbeat pound through his entire body, yelling at him to move, to attack, to defend himself. League training flit through his brain, telling him different ways to kill the man in front of him. His _brother_, that he didn’t want to kill. His brother that he didn’t want to fight. His brother that he wasn’t _going_ to fight.

Dick’s nearly silent footsteps felt like bombs going off in his ears, his tone more warning than before if it was even possible. “Whose question.” An order, no question about it. Dick was pissed. Fuck, there was no salvaging this, he’d have to get his bike, he wouldn’t have time to even grab a mask, he needed to be out of there by the time Dick made it to where Jason was crouched. He needed to be out of Gotham by the time Dick made it out of the hangar. He needed to be gone, and he needed to be gone a week ago. “Jason, whose question did you answer.” 

Jason’s position shifts into one optimized for sprinting at the drop of a hat, disguised as the uncomfortable movements people who don’t want to answer questions default to. Despite that, his words come out rushed and urgent, almost pleading. Damn his voice without the modulators. “His question, Tim’s question. I didn’t touch him, I swear.” 

The darkness in Dick’s face dropped down, concern and confusion replacing it quickly. “What did he ask?” He kept walking forward, and Jason’s instincts screamed at him to run with everything they had.

“I- It doesn’t matter, back off.” His blades become more apparent, more threatening, and Dick opens his mouth to object only to be cut off. “I said back off!”

There was panic in his voice, that time, pure and unbridled in a way that reminded him of the pit, shame churning in his gut at the fact that he couldn’t keep it deep in his stomach without the help of his vocal modulators. It made Dick practically flinch away from Jason, taking several steps back until he was just barely in front of Tim. Slowly, Jason rose from his deep crouch and let his hands fall to his sides. He took deep breaths with closed eyes, training from the All Caste letting his heart rate fall. 

“Jay, you need to tell me what he asked.” Jason’s eyes open slowly, his breathing long and deliberate. He hides his knives back in their hiding spots, looked vaguely in Dick’s direction, and shrugged before putting his hands in his pockets only to frown at the pain it caused. Damn stab wound. Pulling his hands out of his pockets again, he forced the tension away from his shoulders and took steps towards the door, only to be stopped by Dick again halfway there. “Little Wing, your hand has blood on it, you must’ve broken the stitches. Let’s take care of that, and you can explain what he asked.”

Slowly, he was led back to the bed he had been on earlier, and sat still as the wound in his side was exposed. After what felt like way too long of Dick taking off the bandages, and starting to clean off the blood and remnants of the first stitches, he found himself uncomfortable with the silence. He didn’t want to admit any further involvement, because this was his fault in some fucked up indirect way and the Bats’d see that and be pissed about it, but if they could do good with the information and help Tim after he woke up, then would it be worth it? 

It was only Dick in the batcave, after all, and if necessary he could lightly stab his brother and get the hell out of the Bats business forever. That would get him away with minimal injury. Yeah, that works. So he’ll tell Dick, then book it. “It was a week ago at this point,” He hated the way his tone was nothing but tired and distant. “And I had been in one of my safehouses after patrol when Timbo came through my window. He sat at my table, I gave him a coffee and I drank my tea and it had been quiet. He started staring at me with this curious look in his eye, like he was going to ask a question, so I just told him to spill it already. And then...” His voice broke, and he wished for nothing more than to either be nowhere near here or have his helmet on. “Dick, he asked me what it was like to die.” A second of pause as he shook his head. “He asked me what it was like to die and I kinda looked at him for a second because what the hell was he talkin’ about, but I told him. I told him what my death felt like.” There were a few moments, where the sting of the gauze was pulled away from his flesh, where the only sounds were the small breathing of the first two Robins and the tiny whimpering of the third, that pulled at Jason’s heart. “I said it hurt, excruciating and was completely a shitty time. Then it just… stopped. The pain, the world around me, everything. It was just empty, calm, and there was a feeling of safety that I’ve _never_ felt while alive. It was… amazing.” 

There wasn’t any hesitation before Dick’s eyes met his, worry and shock painfully clear in them. “Dick, he did this because he thought it’d be okay. He did it because he was okay with dying, and that’s my fault.” He swallowed once, twice, trying to get rid of the feeling that there’s a golf ball in his throat, and didn’t look Dick in the eyes again. He couldn’t see the reaction. He couldn’t see the betrayal, the hatred, everything he swore would be there. He couldn’t handle it. So he stared down at the bloody gauze, over at Tim as long as he could (less than a second), and then down at his hands. 

Silence sat in the room, only interrupted by the beeping machines and small breaths of the youngest. Slowly, Dick brought his hand to Jason’s forearm, making sure he could see it and conveying that there was no malicious intent. “Little wing, no. Tim has… Tim’s felt things like that for at least as long as we’ve known him, but it’s always been under control. This wasn’t on you.” He shook his brothers arm slowly, trying to be reassuring against the tears Jason didn’t notice he’d been crying. “We’re going to talk about it with him when he wakes up, alright? You, me, and him.” 

Jason’s shoulders tensed at the prospect of still having to be at the cave. “No. _You_ can talk to him. I’m going to be out searching for the Joker. I need to be.” He pushed Dick’s hand away, but stayed in place for the sake of the still unstitched gash in his side. “I need to be free to leave.” The swelling uncomfortability made everything inside of him scream for him to run even more, to screw the healing process and leave the pit remnants to deal with the aggravated wound. If it hadn’t been for Dick crouching right in front of him, he probably would have. But in the end he didn’t want to run right now, not when if would hurt or entirely ruin the tentative relationship with the Bats he’d managed to create. They were his brothers, his sisters and family. He loved them. So for now, he sat.

“Jay, _we’re_ going to talk about this. You know if it’s just me he’ll dismiss it as undue henning, but with both of us he might actually listen. You need to be there. Please. He sees you as his brother but he’s scared that you don’t see him the same way, show him differently and he could help himself, or let _us_ help him.” Though Jason wouldn’t look up to see it, there was pleading in his eyes. 

Jason’s gaze seemed unfocused as they wander back up to Tim’s form. Too frail, too broken. Within the haze, he only sat silently as Dick finished redoing the stitches and covered the wound. He never responded, at least not for a while, but he sat.

He sat and he waited, past when Alfred brought him food, past when Dick finally gave up on a response and went upstairs, past when the others trickled in from patrol tired and bruised, past everything. This time, there would be someone with Tim when he opened his eyes again. He swore it.


End file.
